GENEVA PROTOCOL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 January 1925, Page 6

GENEVA PROTOCOL.

LORD GREY’S CRITICISM. LONDON, Nov. IS. Lord Grey, of Eallodon, has been a great supporter of the League of Nations. yet in a speech he made at New-castle-on-Tyne on Saturday he pointed out some \ ery definite objections to tn© Geneva Protocol, as it now stands. If Britain meant to make the Leacute of Nations a reality, said Lord Grey, she would not stand for separate alliances. Britain would say : “llieve is one thing only for which we are prepared to stand, and that is the Covenant of the League of Nations. Dealing with the Protocol, V iscount Grey said that he would never be a party to anything which gave a toreion tribunal power to order the British Navy about That was a matter for the British Government, if we became parties to the Geneva Protocol we would be under a moral obligation to a foreign tribunal to use our naval power. But when people, in criticism of the Protocol, went so far a s to say that if we became parties to )t it might bring us into conflict with the United States upon European questions, he declared that to he highly improbable, and he would not make that list, an objection to the Protocol. It wus true that th- United States would not pm the League, but the difference between Britain ami the United States was not one of aim and object, but merely or form. While the United States would not join the League, he did not believe for one moment that they desired to hinder the objects of the Leacure If the League showed itself dohig something really practical to secure ..future peace and prevent ' the growth of armaments, it would make Uie United States more disposed to accept and help it. Whatever was done about the Protocol Britain must carry the. Dominions with her. He hoped the Dominions would not separately turn down any proposal without consulting the British Government. Whether the Protocol was accented, amended, or something better devised, lie. hoped there would be full consultation between Britain and the Dominions to arrive at some common conclusion. The real victor ot the. Great War was itself. The next war would he a concentration of bombs and poison against the great centres of population. -It would be a victory over civilisation itself, and civilisation could not stand it. OTHER OBJECTIONS.

The Daily Chronicle refers to three other objections to the Protocol to which Lord Grey does not seem to have alluded A . “The first is that by increasing the obligation involved by League membership, it must rather dissuade than encourage the entry into the League if the Great Powers still left outside—namely, the United States and Russia. The second is, that since all its stress is laid on enforcing the Treaties of 1919 while it does nothing to amplify the Covenant’s tiny loophole for their '•evision, it tends to make the League ui instrument for stereotyping, the icttlements which the victors dictated if ter the war. The third is the objection particularly felt by our Dominions —that owing to the Japanese amendment the question of Asiatic immigraL ion is brought under the Protocol, and in theory, at least, a white country ■mild be compelled by the League of Nations to receive s coloured immigrants igainst its will. For all these reasons :t seems scarcely possible for Great Britain to accept the Protocol in its present form. It is already clear that neither Canada nor Australia Jior New Zealand will do so.

POSSIBILITIES OF COMPROMISE. “Lord Grey observed, very wisely, that ‘whatever was done about the Protocol, Great Britain must carry the Dominions with her.’ He hoped that they would not separately turn it down without consulting us, and that there would be a full discussion between us and them to ■ arrive at some common con•lusion. To meet the Protocol with a hand negative would have a bad international effect. Its first consequence would be to stop the Disarmament Con'e re nee, which it is hoped to hold next yfa.r. Further, it would strengthen throughout the world a reaction towards militarism and armed nationalsm, therefore, will have, with the Doninions, to study the possibilities of compromise. It is a difficult, but should lot be an -impossible, task. Lord Sydenham, in a letter to The L'imes, says that it is inconceivable to urn that the Governments of the Dominions will ratify the Protocol. “In his view,” he says, “I may, of course, be wrong; but it is at least certain hat America will never join the League n the conditions now offered. The )Ujection by the latest emendation. ’Vithout the willing adhesion of Amerca, I cannot imagine an effective League of Nations.”